Go Buffs!

Can we laugh and call me butch for this one?  I mean, we can laugh, but I doubt anyone can call me butch.  This is the third time now that we've been invited by Robert to join him in his box for a Buffs game at Folsom Field in Boulder, and I remain mystified by football.  Why didn't the clock stop there?  Why did it stop there?  First downs and strategy and such.  It's opaque to me.

And yet, it was a blast to get to go to the opener for the University of Colorado yesterday!

As I said, the third time we've been lucky enough to be invited to join Robert and Courtney. 

The box had wonderful views of the whole stadium and of the mountains beyond Boulder. 

A birds eye view of the field below for all the goings on.  Not just the game in play, but the marching band

and the running of Ralphie, the buffalo

(and sorry, folks, buffalo and bison are the same animal in North America)(which made it all the funnier that the Buffaloes were playing the North Dakota State University Bison!).  Americans do sports events right, I tell you.  We had on our CU-Boulder gear. 

There were beaded necklaces and silly hats and more for the box guests. 

The Buffs won to start the season.  It was close, and it really did go down to the end to make sure they held their lead that they won back in the second half.  That made for an exciting time.  And a late night - the traffic out of Boulder was slow and congested, and it was almost eleven when we got home.

So, go Buffs!  Have a great season!  And thank you, Robert, for inviting us.

wine tasting in Chile

If you look back on older posts in this blog, you’ll see that Conrad and I have gone wine tasting a lot while on vacation.  The missing years included such expeditions as wine tasting in Tuscany

and South Africa

as well as a few trips to Napa

and many trips to Paso Robles.  

Funnily enough, we’ve become cocktail people in the meantime,

but we still make room for wine.

This past Saturday was our first full day in Chile.  After the arrival in Santiago on an overnight flight and then the excursion out of the city, Conrad and I were super exhausted.  We slept through until 8:55 on Saturday morning.  Which is lovely, but we were due to join the others at 9:30 in a van to the coast.  Yikes!  We scrambled and made it on time.  Mid-morning we were heading west to Valparaiso with a stop en route planned:  tasting at a winery in Casablanca.

Natasha’s friend Lorena, who lives in Santiago, knew and enjoyed the wines from Casas del Bosque,

and arranged for an 11:00 tasting.  We were set up in a tasting room at a large table

along with two couples.  They spoke Spanish, we spoke English, the woman who gave us the tasting spoke both.  I dishonour her by forgetting her name, but she did a terrific job of presenting the wines.  Knowledgeable, humourous.  She was great!

The wines, too, were quite enjoyable.  

The Sauvignon blanc was reminiscent of ones we had enjoyed in New Zealand, and we bought a bottle.  The Chardonnay was fine, but we preferred the Sauvignon blanc.  The Pinot Noir had a terrific nose, but it was rather mineral-y to me, and while fine, was my least favourite of the five wines.  The Syrah was a surprise.  I often find them peppery, but this was the most approachable of the wines, an easy and lovely tipple.  We bought a bottle.  The Cabernet Sauvignon was a good Cab with some decent age and no scent or taste of green vegetable.  Conrad and I usually avoid Cabs, but this was smoooooth.  

I kick myself for not buying a bottle.  It was the only one of the five (generous) pours I finished.

After the pouring was done, and while I was shopping, the woman (again, sorry) came out with a small tasting of a special blend for me and another man.  Only thirty bottle left.  It was delightful, and that became our third purchase.  I still wish I had gone for the Cab, though!

Were I to come back to Chile (I’d like to), I’d want to do more wine tasting.  See more of the regions, try some other wines (we’ve enjoyed Carmeneres at dinners, for example).  Maybe one day.  If I can find Casas del Bosque in the US in the meantime, I would be happy.

Joshua Tree

Courtney and Robert came to visit us in the desert this past weekend.  A first trip there for her, though not for him, and we hope they enjoyed themselves enough to come back.  Fingers crossed!

Conrad, Van, and I have done Joshua Tree twice now in the past few weeks.  First it was a drive there on Boxing Day with Marie,

and then again this past Saturday.  Funnily enough, it was grey weather, both times, quite unlike my first time up to Joshua Tree in May of this past year when Allan and Paul were visiting the desert.

Ah well.  At least it's an easy drive from Rancho Mirage!

So we set out near lunchtime on Saturday,

knowing we had all afternoon thanks to a late dinner reservation, and time to drive and stop.  Or we might have stopped more but for the weather.  Yes, some rain in parts, and brisk temperatures.  At the overlook where we can take in the Coachella Valley, I think it was 43 degrees.  Brrrr.  The warmth of the car and the comfort of Yacht Rock Radio was welcome!  Still, we did get to show them the namesake plants

as well as the chollas

and rock formations that the park is known for. 

And yes, I dozed off on the drive home.  The nap instinct is still strong with me.

I'd love more time to explore the park rather than drive end to end and stop for occasional photos.  I'm not a vigorous hiker, but I think I could enjoy a proper hike or two in there, given preparation (water, sunscreen, the usual).

On the other hand, that's three trips through Joshua Tree in the past eight or nine months.  In truth, I'd be happy to leave off driving through there again for a little while.  Given how much time we spend down in the desert these days, there's a lot of other hikes and sights to enjoy.

But no, never say never, right?  :-)

Back? Possibly.

Ten and a half years since last I blogged.  Goodness.

Things have changed.  Conrad and I are no longer in Chicago, having moved to Pasadena, CA, ten years ago.

A new job for me, a transfer and then semi-retirement for him.  He is well into his 60s.  I am in the early years of my fifties.  My professional title is now Doctor.  

We have Van (and Olive).  

Roy died in 2013, Mum died in 2019.  There is much more big and small.

Courtney and Robert have been visiting us in the desert this long weekend,

and during our conversations, I shared some old blog links.  Someone - one of them, or maybe Van - asked why I wasn’t blogging any longer.  The main reason?  After Dad died in 2009, I lost steam.  It took a while, but I came to a realization that I had been blogging as a way for him, at a long distance from me, to read about my life.  And that freed me to stop doing that.

But social media also took over.  A Facebook post, a Tweet, and Instagram story - all were so much easier than telling stories here.  Less work involved, immediate gratification.  New communities that blended old and new people in my life.

In recent times, though, I have suspended all of my social media accounts.  Various reasoning.  Twitter, for example, is very much not what it was, and I don’t care to support its new regime.  The suspensions certainly freed up my time during a tremendously hectic December as well.  And then January rolled around, and I found myself not missing all the time I spent on those platforms.

But still, I wanted to share, and somehow tell my stories.  So here I am, so many years later.  Back for good?  Doubtful.  Maybe.  We’ll see.

A hello, then, to anyone still reading this or stumbling upon it.  Food.  Travel.  Musings.  That’s what this will be.  An unambiguous blog, a place to share the things I’d like to share.

so... that was Dallas...

I've been to Texas a handful of times before. San Antonio for Midwinter years back, Austin (and area) a few times more recently with Conrad (he's a UT alum). I liked San Antonio. I LOVED Austin. This time around it was Dallas. Not a vacation, however. No, this was conference travel, ALA Midwinter 2012.

I don't comment on work on this blog. I just won't do it. I will say before anything else, however, that no matter what I feel about my workplace (good or ill), I absolutely love my involvement with the American Library Association. I mean, seriously, there are so many good and interesting people I've met and continue to get to know. I find conferences rewarding on so many levels: content, networking, committee work, friends, dining, sightseeing. So let me point you to the report I posted in an official capacity and move on from there.

I would normally start off this post with talk of TK, my best friend. Assuredly, he will appear. But Midwinter in Dallas marked a milestone: ten years of knowing Martin. We met at the GLBTRT all-committees meeting in New Orleans in 2002 and started rooming together the next year in Philadelphia. Over the years we've become good friends. I cannot tell you enough how very much I like and respect this man (and do please vote for him as ALA Councilor-at-Large!). He puts up with all my high maintenance drama in the hotel room, and he has gotten me into some really terrific receptions and other social events. And we've killed many hours late at night talking about the Association and many other assorted bits of gossip. Dallas was the latest chance we had to spend time together, and I'm grateful for that. Did I mention that you should vote for him?

Added to that mix: TK. Yes, yes, I just saw him a handful of days before the conference when Conrad and I were in Baltimore. I don't care. I will happily take any opportunity to spend time with TK, and if it means that we can add in the library gossip to boot, then great! Plus, as lovely as it is to have our husbands added to the mix with us, the conference rooming together means that he and I can rattle off names and concepts without worrying about leaving them out of the conversation. TK had a very prestigious awards committee appointment that culminated in Monday's Youth Media Awards, and it was genuinely thrilling to see how bubbly he was over the whole thing. I couldn't wait to hear about it all after the award was announced and he could finally talk about it. I'm so very proud of the work he did.

I didn't dine out especially well in Dallas, I have to admit. In part it was because I had a working dinner one night, catered in to the hotel room of the ALA President-Elect. Another night I had three receptions all on different floors of the Dallas Public Library,

so that took care of dinner there. Lunches were usually pretty casual as well - assuming I even had lunch. I did manage pizza one day with my friend Peter, though. Other than that? Some mixed experiences.

A Thursday dinner with TK at Wild Salsa.


Reportedly, the librarians almost drank the whole place out of tequila on Saturday. I'm unsure why we're supposed to be so proud of ourselves for consuming booze. Big deal. Ah well. We had tasty food there, and it was a very good price. A belated celebration planned for TK's birthday. There was a Saturday dinner with TK, Martin, and CG at Dream Cafe. That took a hotel shuttle to get to, and it was a curiously quiet restaurant. Nonetheless, we had a good meal, again not too pricey. Enjoyable! On the Monday night, TK, Martin, and I headed to Samar.
I liked a few of the shared small plates, but the table we had near the bar was awful, there were a few not-so-great dishes (the whipped walnut oil on one was kind of disgusting), and by the time we left, I was in a foul mood.

Happily, there was a little place near our hotel that had just opened very late last year. More of a bar than anything, but they had a small and decent menu. It's called The Chesterfield, and if you want to have fun with cocktails, then check it out some time. In two days I managed to get there four times. ;-)



I didn't see much else of the city. It was hotel ---> conference centre ---> hotel. Repeat. I got to swim once with Liz over at an amazing fitness centre at the Baylor Medical Campus, but that was the farthest afield I got. On the other hand, the conference centre did have good coffee at the Starbucks, and it was convenient for meeting friends (like David). And as the days went on, I found myself busy at Council and happily engaged.

I don't know that I'm keen to get back to Dallas, but that's quite unfair given how little of the city I saw. It would be good to see Liz and Peter again, and get back to Chesterfield. And maybe dine at some new and better places. Ah well. The conference was fine, however, and now I just await Conrad's return from his own work travel.

More photos in the Flickr set, and do check out the photos others posted from the conference.